AssessmentScheme

“A distinct definition of an assessment system whose descriptive dimensions are ordinary DataElements linked to the scheme, analogous to a FindingClass with its descriptors. The scheme is distinct from any one dimension or that dimension’s permissible values.”¹ Lung-RADS, TI-RADS, BI-RADS, and LI-RADS are the systems this node type covers.

The key structural claim is separation. The scheme is not the category value it produces, and it is not the finding it assesses. OIDM’s authoring guidance reaches the same conclusion from the finding model side: “scoring systems and structured assessments are valid findings, but should be modeled separately from the observations they assess,” because “different radiologists might describe the same nodule but assign different risk categories, and systems need to reason about both independently.”²

The lineage FHIR samples already implement that shape. A Lung-RADS Observation carries the category as a component and is derivedFrom both the imaging study and the radiologist’s pulmonary nodule Observation.³ IHE IDR calls the pattern a Summary or Derived Observation, with the value in the parent and the children referenced by derivedFrom.⁴

Synonyms and near-synonyms

• Scoring system, structured assessment, and the -RADS systems are informal names for the same class of artifact.
• Assessment category is the value a scheme produces, not the scheme.
• In OIFM there is no separate type: a scheme is modelled as an ordinary finding model, and a published example is the CDE set RDES267 for Lung-RADS categorization.

Identifier form

None of its own. Published assessment content carries ordinary RDES or OIFM identifiers.

Where it is used

Next-generation vocabulary, FHIR mapping, and Roadmap 2026, which names *-RADS support as a stated ACR priority.

Footnotes

1. CDE vocabulary, next-generation working glossary ↩

2. “Finding Models: Overview” ↩

3. Lung-RADS assessment Observation ↩

4. IHE IDR Phase II extract ↩